I recently stumbled across a tool called ThingLink. It basically allows you to tag images with interactive pushpins. ThingLink’s use of the word “tag” is a little nonstandard here, as “tag” usually implies “keyword.” Here the tags are text and links that appear in pop-ups, like oversized tooltips.

Just at about the same time I learned of ThingLink’s existence, ThingLink launched its Teacher Summer Challenge for 2015, so I decided to give it a spin as a way to learn ThingLink. The specific task for Week 1 has been “design your digital self.” Follow the Summer Challenge link to read the full description. The result of Week 1 is supposed to be an annotated ThingLink image by which you introduce yourself to other Challenge participants (and the whole world, I guess). Here’s the result of my work.

By way of brief review, I’ll just say that ThingLink is fun, but funky (and mean that in the sense of “funky smell,” not “Funky Kong” or “Funky Town”). The biggest headache is aligning the tag boxes on the image. I would really appreciate some alignment/grid/snap tools in future updates.